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I switched to Home Assistant a couple months ago (because I didn't like the idea of my voice being sent to amazon constantly) and haven't looked back! Soo much

by timwis 2y ago

I switched to Home Assistant a couple months ago (because I didn't like the idea of my voice being sent to amazon constantly) and haven't looked back! Soo much more you can do (including immediately using an LLM, if you like, whether in the cloud or local), and so much more control.

Mountain_Skies 2y ago
Home Assistant is a great example of the amazing things the open source community is capable of doing. Hopefully they get the color version stuff worked out. It's too bad it appears that most of Amazon's hardware devices can't be turned to the good side and made to work with Home Assistant.
- timwis 2y ago
  What do you mean color version? As an aside, I get what you mean in the context of my earlier comment, but just to clarify for anyone reading, you can use alexa and Google home devices with home assistant (eg to send commands and as media players, I believe), but you can't "deamazon"/"degoogle" them and just use the hardware with home assistant, which would be great if we could!
  - serial_dev 2y ago
    I'd love to de-amazon (neuter) my Alexa's, and somehow flash custom firmware on it. We have some devices around the house, and switching to the linked Home Assistant Voice would be a significant expense now.
    - timwis 2y ago
      You can get an atom echo for $13, if that helps: https://www.home-assistant.io/voice_control/thirteen-usd-voice-remote/ https://www.home-assistant.io/voice_control/thirteen-usd-voi...
  - wccrawford 2y ago
    Home Assistant has physical hardware labeled "green" and "yellow". Beyond that, I assume there's some confusion about what each can and can't do? I certainly can't remember which is which... But I don't actually own one.
    - timwis 2y ago
      Ah, yeah, it was confusing to me when I was trying to get started as well! fortunately, the folks in the hardware channel of their Discord are super helpful. Here's what I learnt: Green is the new plug and play server. Easiest to setup and will cover the vast majority of what you'll want to do. Yellow is basically green with a couple extra things built in (namely zigbee and thread), plus expansion bays, if you anticipate building on to it, but it requires you to flash it so less user friendly setup but easy if you're a dev. But most people start out by using an old laptop or PC sitting around. That's what I did, the got a yellow.
  - dylan604 2y ago
    Can you create a private network on your router for your spy devices that blocks any traffic to the mothership while allowing something like Spotify? Do they require access to the mothership to work at all?
draugadrotten 2y ago
I am switching out the Alexas in the house to the home assistant voice devices, which can leverage a local LLM without any cloud whatsoever https://www.home-assistant.io/voice-pe/ https://www.home-assistant.io/voice-pe/ The process is still complicated enough to be "enthusiast" (aka nerd) territory but it is getting better with every release. It will still be here in 10 years, nobody can take it away from us.
- dwayne_dibley 2y ago
  I think the audience here might be ok with '"enthusiast" (aka nerd) territory' hardware.
- stogot 2y ago
  How many hours did you spend on this? I want to do it, but I don’t have much time.
  - timwis 2y ago
    For what it's worth, I was worried about that as well, but I found it to be _fun_, and I actually look forward to playing with it, even before bed. Weird, I know, but I'm enjoying it and didn't think I would.
- elif 2y ago
  " Why did you pick these default wake words and not something like “computer” or “okay assist”? A wake word should be uncommon in everyday conversations at home or in media, such as music or TV, to minimize the risk of the device activating unintentionally. “Nabu”, “Jarvis”, and “Mycroft” ... " They hardcoded the wake words in hardware... Why not just use LLM common sense to say "does this really sound like a purposeful activation?" Or put a GPU in there, or export the call to your PC like they require for text to speech? For being a DIY thing, they made it inexplicably hard to D
  - arcrwlock 2y ago
    Because then you'd be running a full speech to text model all the time, and an LLM any time any speech is detected.
mixermachine 2y ago
We mostly use Alexa for playing music (Radio & Spotify) and setting timers. We also use the multi-room music feature where Alexa plays the same audio source on a certain group (great for parties). Does Home Assistant also have these features?
- procaryote 2y ago
  Are those features worth having a wiretap in your entire home?
  - mixermachine 2y ago
    No that is why I'm asking. I want a replacement. Without those features I can just replace Alexa with nothing because we do not use any other features.
- joshstrange 2y ago
  It has some of those features. I think I’d attach speakers to the HA Voice you can use them that way but the built-in speaker will not cut it (think gen1 Echo). They are cool little devices, but they have a while to go before they can replace the Alexa’s.
  - mixermachine 2y ago
    Ah ok, thanks for the info. Had hoped I could jump on HA Voice right away because I have already a small HA server in my home.
    - joshstrange 2y ago
      Same here, I was ready to replace 8-10 echo with them in a heartbeat if it was even close to the Echo but it's not quite there yet. I hope v2 is good enough as I'd love to remove the echo's but they are too convenient currently.
- zyberzero 2y ago
  Timers works fine. Music - yes, albeit a bit finicky to set up. There's an addon called Music Assistant that controls the music, you can connect it to your provider of choice (local files, Spotify, etc), and you can let it connect to several types of sinks. OOB the HA only knows a few commands (pause, next, etc) but there are some community driven effort to improve the support, such as "Play the album Dark side of the moon". [0]. [0] https://github.com/music-assistant/voice-support https://github.com/music-assistant/voice-support
stego-tech 2y ago
Data sovereignty in general is always a good decision. I love my HA device, my local inference for LLMs on my 3090, my homelab of services, and the FTP access to my PikaPods workloads. If you don't have full control over your data, someone else does - and will do as they please with it, eventually.

by timwis 2y ago

Mountain_Skies 2y ago

Home Assistant is a great example of the amazing things the open source community is capable of doing. Hopefully they get the color version stuff worked out. It's too bad it appears that most of Amazon's hardware devices can't be turned to the good side and made to work with Home Assistant.

timwis 2y ago
What do you mean color version? As an aside, I get what you mean in the context of my earlier comment, but just to clarify for anyone reading, you can use alexa and Google home devices with home assistant (eg to send commands and as media players, I believe), but you can't "deamazon"/"degoogle" them and just use the hardware with home assistant, which would be great if we could!
- serial_dev 2y ago
  I'd love to de-amazon (neuter) my Alexa's, and somehow flash custom firmware on it. We have some devices around the house, and switching to the linked Home Assistant Voice would be a significant expense now.
  - timwis 2y ago
    You can get an atom echo for $13, if that helps: https://www.home-assistant.io/voice_control/thirteen-usd-voice-remote/ https://www.home-assistant.io/voice_control/thirteen-usd-voi...
- wccrawford 2y ago
  Home Assistant has physical hardware labeled "green" and "yellow". Beyond that, I assume there's some confusion about what each can and can't do? I certainly can't remember which is which... But I don't actually own one.
  - timwis 2y ago
    Ah, yeah, it was confusing to me when I was trying to get started as well! fortunately, the folks in the hardware channel of their Discord are super helpful. Here's what I learnt: Green is the new plug and play server. Easiest to setup and will cover the vast majority of what you'll want to do. Yellow is basically green with a couple extra things built in (namely zigbee and thread), plus expansion bays, if you anticipate building on to it, but it requires you to flash it so less user friendly setup but easy if you're a dev. But most people start out by using an old laptop or PC sitting around. That's what I did, the got a yellow.
- dylan604 2y ago
  Can you create a private network on your router for your spy devices that blocks any traffic to the mothership while allowing something like Spotify? Do they require access to the mothership to work at all?

draugadrotten 2y ago

I am switching out the Alexas in the house to the home assistant voice devices, which can leverage a local LLM without any cloud whatsoever https://www.home-assistant.io/voice-pe/ https://www.home-assistant.io/voice-pe/ The process is still complicated enough to be "enthusiast" (aka nerd) territory but it is getting better with every release. It will still be here in 10 years, nobody can take it away from us.

dwayne_dibley 2y ago
I think the audience here might be ok with '"enthusiast" (aka nerd) territory' hardware.
stogot 2y ago
How many hours did you spend on this? I want to do it, but I don’t have much time.
- timwis 2y ago
  For what it's worth, I was worried about that as well, but I found it to be _fun_, and I actually look forward to playing with it, even before bed. Weird, I know, but I'm enjoying it and didn't think I would.
elif 2y ago
" Why did you pick these default wake words and not something like “computer” or “okay assist”? A wake word should be uncommon in everyday conversations at home or in media, such as music or TV, to minimize the risk of the device activating unintentionally. “Nabu”, “Jarvis”, and “Mycroft” ... " They hardcoded the wake words in hardware... Why not just use LLM common sense to say "does this really sound like a purposeful activation?" Or put a GPU in there, or export the call to your PC like they require for text to speech? For being a DIY thing, they made it inexplicably hard to D
- arcrwlock 2y ago
  Because then you'd be running a full speech to text model all the time, and an LLM any time any speech is detected.

mixermachine 2y ago

We mostly use Alexa for playing music (Radio & Spotify) and setting timers. We also use the multi-room music feature where Alexa plays the same audio source on a certain group (great for parties). Does Home Assistant also have these features?

procaryote 2y ago
Are those features worth having a wiretap in your entire home?
- mixermachine 2y ago
  No that is why I'm asking. I want a replacement. Without those features I can just replace Alexa with nothing because we do not use any other features.
joshstrange 2y ago
It has some of those features. I think I’d attach speakers to the HA Voice you can use them that way but the built-in speaker will not cut it (think gen1 Echo). They are cool little devices, but they have a while to go before they can replace the Alexa’s.
- mixermachine 2y ago
  Ah ok, thanks for the info. Had hoped I could jump on HA Voice right away because I have already a small HA server in my home.
  - joshstrange 2y ago
    Same here, I was ready to replace 8-10 echo with them in a heartbeat if it was even close to the Echo but it's not quite there yet. I hope v2 is good enough as I'd love to remove the echo's but they are too convenient currently.
zyberzero 2y ago
Timers works fine. Music - yes, albeit a bit finicky to set up. There's an addon called Music Assistant that controls the music, you can connect it to your provider of choice (local files, Spotify, etc), and you can let it connect to several types of sinks. OOB the HA only knows a few commands (pause, next, etc) but there are some community driven effort to improve the support, such as "Play the album Dark side of the moon". [0]. [0] https://github.com/music-assistant/voice-support https://github.com/music-assistant/voice-support

stego-tech 2y ago

Data sovereignty in general is always a good decision. I love my HA device, my local inference for LLMs on my 3090, my homelab of services, and the FTP access to my PikaPods workloads. If you don't have full control over your data, someone else does - and will do as they please with it, eventually.